It Came from Within
Native Australian Jack Dann chimes in with his essay Antinomies that revels in literary
prowess fit for a deity, which is a quite the departure from a few essays in
Blackwell that fell somewhat short of the term “inspired.”
In Dann’s opening
paragraph, he writes a letter to an invisible, elusive god; a letter not unlike
the many that have been written by believers on the barren fields of divine
presence and plagiarized spirituality. In his satiric plea for forgiveness,
Dann describes his spiritual journey that traverses the “old-man-smelling
synagogues,” sweat lodges, mystic meditations, consensual hallucinations, culinary
inducements, and lucid dreaming that varied from ennui to epiphany.
During the course of his spiritual endeavor, Dann eventually
realized that his emotional transcendence or altered-state of consciousness was
not the presence of some god summoned by any of the various religious medicine
men, but his search for God was actually a search for himself. Although he
yearned for an intercessory god to intervene in the tragic human condition,
putting hope into something that actually exists e.g., education, technology
and science seemed to provide the measureable results he was divinely seeking.
Prayers, spells, and supplications based on irrational hope
and wishful thinking left Dann with a sense of insecurity. Superstitious belief
in a god for his spirituality was a leap of faith he was no longer willing to
make.
So, in an act of insolence and renewed faith in reality— tongue
planted firmly in his cheek—he commits his demons, ghosts, angels, and
hobgoblins to the flames of his psyche, and offers up an atheist prayer of
rationality—solemnly planting his supplications in more fertile ground.
It's a funny piece. Too many academics are glum & humorless. And pale.
ReplyDelete"You are what you seek."
ReplyDeleteNo truer words have ever been spoken than in Matthew 7:7: "Seek and ye shall find."
ReplyDeleteStart with a conclusion then set sail.